Thursday, September 4, 2014

The Real Secret to Weight Loss

A friend of mine who still smokes cigarettes confided that he desperately wants to quit and keeps trying, but hasn't yet been successful. As a former smoker who quit eight years ago after 30 years engaging in the habit, I said it's simple: You have to not want to smoke more than you want to. He admitted, "But I still want to smoke." And I said, "That's why you still do it." That's the good news--at least he's doing what he wants.

People cannot stop doing something they want to continue doing more than they want to stop doing it. It is actually the exact opposite of rocket science: it's the simplest thing in the world. This dictum also applies to losing weight, and contains the one and only "secret" to weight loss: You have to not want to eat the food more than you want to eat it.

As they used to say at the old Weight Watchers meetings I attended decades ago, "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels." And while there may be some food, somewhere in the world, that actually does taste better than being able to wear all those "thin" clothes in the back of your closet that fit you once, or that you bought hoping they would motivate you to lose weight, you have to really believe that statement or else you are doomed to fail.